The End of Self-Consciousness? (Remembering the 1990s)

Looking back at the 1990s from a generation on I find myself thinking that it may have been the last time when Americans had a sense of how ridiculous, and gross, contemporary culture was becoming. I think, for instance, of how films like The Truman Show and EdTV treated the idea of "reality television," and the idea of American society becoming obsessed with such a thing, as over-the-top satire--just before American society became obsessed with it to a degree that makes EdTV, at least, look like nothing, with scarcely a word uttered about the matter as such, and indeed the sycophantic entertainment press breathlessly cheerleading for the garbage. Indeed, two decades later the book and film The Circle, which shows this sort of pop culture-ified voyeurism in hyper-intensified form--with everyone the star of their own Truman Show and EdTV, watched by all the other Truman Show and EdTV stars comprising the rest of the population of the planet, the original concept multiplied by billions and billions--was regarded as already stale stuff by underwhelmed critics who did not give much sign of thinking about what its looking stale to their eyes said about the reality they were living in.

Still less did they seem to give any thought to how media business hucksters such as themselves were contributing to that reality.